Brussels, 02/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - Why not leave your home areas and move to Europe's major capitals in the centre of Europe or to more prosperous regions? According to the Conference of the Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR), this invitation to small and medium-sized enterprises was what Directorate General Competition (of the European Commission) said for the main part, in its contribution on revision of regional state aid (see interview with Commissioner Neelie Kroes: EUROPE 27 January p 13). According to the CPMR, this proposal constitutes, “a radical change to public state aid opportunities to companies, compared to the present situation (but a continuity with the May 2004 proposal): not including the poorest regions (Objective 1, phasing in, phasing out, ultra-peripheral regions with low density populations) and all other European regions in the same category, which are 'not eligible” and subject to more restrictive conditions governing public aid to companies”. According to the press release, this could make the case for the development differential in the whole of the regions. According to the CPMR, Commissioner Kroes' approach is “contradictory”. The CPMR says that on the one hand the Commissioner says that they should ask themselves whether the poorest regions in rich countries can continue to receive public aid but on the other hand why pose the question to the CPMR, “does the Commission's proposal increase the capability of the most competitive territories to help small and medium-sized enterprises?” A CPMR graph indicates that that according to these proposals small companies will benefit from +5% of intervention rates and medium-sized companies from +2.5%.